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Personal Development, Success

Quarter Life Crisis Occurs at 25 years old? I don’t think so!

December 2, 2010

I was in FULL KNOWLEDGE that today is the 1st of December. It means that this is the final leg of the ‘race’ in 2010. Now, when it’s this time of the year, I usually know that I’m just 1 month away to my birthday (hint: it’s in january.. duh!) and this year it’s especially surreal because I’m turning 25 next year.

25 = quarter century old = quarter life crisis

Is it? I don’t know. But I certainly hope not.

Now as I ponder what exactly has happened in the past 24 years of my life, I dare say that this life has been well-lived so far, simply because I try to live by the motto of ‘Carpe Diem’ and early experiences in life have led me to treasure life even more.

The MMI event I recently went to (if you haven’t read it, it’s here), has made me more aware of the importance of success and celebrating it. It was really funny to me to go through one activity in MMI where I had to list the successes in my life because i think around 3 or 4years ago, Calvin did a similar exercise with me. So what we have to do is to list down the number of successes we have experienced in our life. Back then, I didn’t write a single thing! I think I only wrote 1 and I felt sooo bad that I didn’t have any achievements in my life.

BUT NOW.. it’s different.

At the event, successes that I have experienced from when I was young till today, came to me quite naturally and I just felt overwhelmed at how much I have changed – how now I do not think as poorly of myself as before.

Were the experiences of success the determining factor?

Maybe. But I have to say that it’s how I think and choose to empower myself with my success stories that caused me to remember and list them more.

Food for thought:

Now, don’t you think if you are constantly thinking about how successful you are, you probably will think that you are?

Similarly, if you constantly can’t recall your achievements, you probably will be thinking you have nothing much to cheer about and you aren’t successful.

That was the revelation that I got from MMI’s experience.

The more you think about success and how you are able to achieve, the more likely you are to think that you have the ability to succeed. Well, what the ‘gurus’ like to term this, especially in The Secret, is what they call the Law of Attraction. Law of Attraction or not, it just shows how important empowering yourself with positive beliefs (especially about yourself) are.

So right now, Calvin and I have adopted the exercise conducted from MMI where we celebrate at least 5 of our daily successes, big or small, just to keep the positive energy going.

I have to say that I’m not the most positive person in this world. I actually like to think – since opposites attract; Calvin is super positive ALL THE TIME, that explains why I’m usually the negative party in this relationship.  It’s all his fault! 😛

Well, the exercise has been useful so far though sometimes we laugh at the fact that we only have 3 for the day and we try to do something to make up for success #4 and #5. That still helps, doesn’t it? We train ourselves to be successful! Hehe..

So that’s the crux that I wanna share with you and that is, celebrate your successes – old, new, big or small. They are never too small to be passed off as insignificant because they are small achievements meant to be celebrated! So celebrate!

p.s. Though I do recognize my abilities in achieving my successes, I do not want to forget my Jesus. Because only with Him, all things are possible.

xxx

Personal Development, Success

How To Be On Track To Achieve Success

September 6, 2009

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. It isn’t as difficult as you think to achieve. Because every single day we do have our little successes in the things we do. Hence, we should embrace the successes in our lives, even though they may be really small.

To be on track to achieve success, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic situation, professional qualifications and even ethnicity. Moreover, you also need to reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your strengths and weaknesses.

Ask yourself, “Who do you want to be?”

You need to know who you want to be in order to know what are the things you want to change about yourself in order to be closer to who you want to be. The things you need to change might be attitudes, habits, or points of view. They might not be changed overnight but the most important thing is that you recognise what needs to be changed and start working on it.

You also need to be clear of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that you have that will help you in attaining your vision. This is because there is a need for you to assess these knowledge, skills, and attitudes that you have at present to help you to make changes to your attitudes etc. or to help you plans the steps to achieve your success.

It is good to always plan your route to success with goals. Goal-setting is a very important aspect in determining your success. Calvin and I can attest to that. Goal setting keeps you focused. They need to be S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. You need to sit down and think about your goals and set them according to the S.M.A.R.T. qualities. With the S.M.A.R.T. goals, you can be sure that you are going to be on track in achieving the success you desire.

But before all that, you really need to take the big step of identifying who you want to be and then slowly think about how you are going to be the person whom you want to be.

All the best!

Personal Development, Success

The Triangle Theory of Success! (Part 3)

May 23, 2008

After a long break (yes a very longggg one!), it’s back to my 4 part series on the Triangle Theory of Success which I feel has benefited me in a great way in achieving that balance that I want in life and this balance empowers me with confidence and faith to achieve even greater things.

If you are constantly wondering and envying that featured person in the newspaper (a successful businessman, artist, celebrity, designer, writer etc.. the list goes on), well, frankly you are not the only person who feels that way. You are just wondering “How in the world could they have done/achieved that?” Frankly, I’m one of them.. I always envy those who seem to have achieved success ‘without much effort’, when in fact, the media always creates a rosy picture and not really on the hard work that was put into it.. I know too many cases of such.

Let me tell you, it’s achievable by people like you and me. The success and breakthroughs that you are looking for in life, are accessible by you but it’s a matter of whether you want to push yourself out of the comfort zone to get to it. I know my journey has been rather a sort of “internal battle of ‘what ifs’ and ‘just do its'”. But to me, the Triangle Theory of Success has been some sort of a revelation to me because upon achieving balance in the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of my life, I have seen tremendous things happening in my life in the past year:
1. I have achieved a great balance between school and business, just completing my Psychology degree and have managed IMovators, my start up with Calvin and Munir.
2. I was featured on a reputable local bilingual newspaper, MyPaper together with Calvin.

3. I appeared on a local talk show, Just Shoot 3!.

4. Calvin and I were featured on a local tertiary magazine, Crossroads.

5. We achieved breakthroughs in internet marketing.. Especially for Calvin.. where we must really thank God for generously blessing him and Jonathan and what they are doing. Do check out IMBuzzCreators.com to check out the wide array of products and services they are providing!
What I’ve seen happening in our lives, specially for me, Calvin and Jonathan, are really outcomes of the Triangle Theory.. Do check out my earlier posts, Post 1and Post 2 on more on the Triangle Theory.
Now, in this post, I’m concentrating on the physical aspect of our lives, which mainly comprise of leading a healthy lifestyle and have a healthy body. Why are they important?

Without a health lifestyle, you won’t have a healthy body and without a healthy body, you are unfit to pursue the things that you want to because you just can’t meet the physical demands of the task. Moreover, a lot of people say, “Money can’t buy health” which is partially true because you may have all the money in the world to pay for treatment etc., but if your health is already in a bad state, money can just buy you more extra time to be alive, but not prolong your health. Sad but true.

Achieving the best of the physical aspect of our lives is not as easy as it seems. Sometimes, we are always tempted to do things that are contrary to living healthily such as snacking on fatty foods like cakes, sodas, fried chicken etc. We may be addicted to smoking or bingeing, which are maladaptive health behaviors (woohoo! i hope my health psychology professor would be proud to see i’m blogging about this.:P) It’s a daily decision to choose to do the ‘healthy’ or the ‘unhealthy’ things in life.

It’s not only just the food that comprises our lifestyle but also the activities that we carry out on a daily basis. For instance, are we couch potatoes who sit in front of the TV all day? Or are we actively working out? A simple activity would be to choose to walk 15mins from place A to get to place B instead of taking the public transport or car. (By the way, Calvin’s such a lazy bum who doesn’twant to walk from my place to the library which takes only 10mins! hahaha..)

You need to start a exercise and diet regimen that will keep you not only on your toes but maintain your optimum health. It’s good to start with a non-ambitious plan of working out 1-2times a week for at least 30-45mins to a more routine plan of working out at least 20-30mins a day.

The activities that I do implement:

1. Cycling

2. Brisk Walking

3. Jogging

4. Playing Ball Sports i.e. Basketball
5. Swimming

It’s all about making the first step towards a healthy lifestyle! As for your diet regimen, it’s good to eat more vegetables and fruits and drink more fluids (fluids meaning water, juices etc. and not sodas!!).

An example of my day’s meals:

Breakfast: 1 glass of water, a bowl of muesli with non-fat milk

Lunch: Seafood beehoon soup with barley water, an apple
Dinner: 2 Vegetables and 1 meat side-dishes with brown rice and a bowl of soup.

It’s better to have proper meals in a day rather than starve in a bid to diet. Also,you need to start putting in effort to eat right and healty whenever you go out to the restaurants or eat out at the food centres. Start exercising regularly too. Find it difficult and need motivation? Involve friends as well to get them to work out together with you or join you in your activities!

Maintaining such a healthy lifestyle and body just helps to make sure that your mind and body are constantly moving and on the go. Moreover, you would also feel that you’ll have more energy each day and can be able to move forward with ease. Plus, exercising releases hormones that produces a ‘feel-good’ and destressing feeling.. It does help in maintaining the mental aspect of your life! So start making a change in your life today!

In my next blog post for this series, I’ll be touching on the spiritual aspect. So do drop by for more!

Personal Development, Success

The Triangle Theory of Success! (Part 2)

April 10, 2008

In this 4 part blog series, I’m going to share with you about the Triangle Theory for Success and in the first post, I briefly talked about the 3 corners of the triangle that you need to keep in balance in order to help you in the attainment of success.

It is very important for you to know how to tap into each aspect of life and fully utilise it to help you achieve the goals that you have in mind. And the first corner that I’ll be touching on in this post is the Mental aspect.

The mental aspect of the Triangle theory is targeting the optimum capacity and functioning of your mind such that you are able to control your thoughts and feelings as well as obtain and maintain your mental well-being at its very best.

Why is this so important?

Our minds control the functioning of our body, heart and spirit such that whatever we believe in, think and cognitively process and evaluate will influence our actions, behaviors, values, beliefs and spirit. We are always affected by the way our minds think. Whether we look at a situation as a failure or an opportunity, all results from the way we process the information that we have in our minds. And how we evaluate the situation may just open or close the door to our success.

In order to attain success, it is always good to model after those who have attained success in their lives. So, look at all the successful people out there – Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey etc.. Frankly, if there’s a common thing about them, it is the way they think. They are always very positive and able to turn situations around whenever the circumstances call for them. Think they got their success overnight? No! They are also human beings who have experienced bouts of failures but at the same time, have been able to re-evaluate and process information and jump at opportunities that appear before them.

Successful people always occupy themselves with positive energies and do not let stress, failures and negative feedback weigh them down. This is something that I am most impressed about them. Their resilience as well as ability to reappraise negative situations and be able to change the way they react and adapt to their environments immediately, are what keeps them going on their pursuit of success.

Thus, when you enhance the mental aspect of your life, you’ll be able to rebounce back from failures, see failures as opportunities and regard threats as challenges. You will look at things differently and will think out of the box or creatively. In fact, when you are able to reappraise things differently, you might come up with fascinating ideas which can help you achieve success earlier.

So, how do you achieve that same tenure and ability? How do you enhance the mental aspect of your life?

Firstly, you need to surround yourself with things that help build you as a person.  They can be people, working environments and even the things you read. Look at the people around you – are they people who are positive, optimistic and happy? Remember “Birds of the same kind flock together”, hence if you feel that you are not in a group that is as charged and motivated as you wish it to be, this might be a factor of hindering your drive towards success.

Now, I’m not asking you to stop hanging around with the group you are currently with. I’m asking you to find people who are able to build you to become an even better person. Find a mentor or find a friend who is driven towards success as much as you are. Before you’d realise, you’ll be attracting a lot of other people who are equally driven naturally to you. Those whom you associate or hang out with really can impact the way you think, feel, act and behave. So, you want to be successful? One good way will be to try hanging out with successful people.

Next, make sure that the environment you are working in allows you to function optimally in the mental aspect. Make sure that you are in an environment that is challenging you to pursue even greater results and goals. You have to be always on the go in order to keep alert of the situations and opportunities around you. If your environment is not stimulating, you might find yourself just losing all creativity, interest, ideas and dreams.

One good habit that you might like to start on is by reading inspirational books and magazines to spur your spirit. There are many in the market and in fact, there are many free ones online. Reading such books will ignite your desire to achieve the best in your life and you need to make sure that you continually feed on positive and inspirational material in order to keep your dreams and goals towards success alive. Success does not always happen overnight. Sometimes you get disappointed with your progress and it’s always good to have something to trigger your drive again.

Before I forget, always remember to let your mind breathe. The mental aspect of your life not only needs to be charged but at the same time, it also needs to recharge. Find activities that enhance your mental wellbeing such as going out with friends, going for concerts, exercising etc. You will find that doing so can help you destress and be able to cope better with the demands of the work towards success. Overwhelming yourself will only serve to decrease your abilities in concentration and idea generation which might hinder you from achieving success earlier.

I hope that you have benefited from this post on the mental aspect of the Triangle Theory and how it is important to enhance it to achieve success and as well as the steps to do so. There’s nothing I’d like more than you actually applying it in your life and seeing the results from doing so. Like I said, success does not always happen overnight. So do be patient when adopting the ways to enhance the mental aspect because your success in doing so might take some time before you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labour. 🙂

Remember to check back on Part 3 of the Triangle Theory! 😉

Personal Development, Success

The Triangle Theory of Success! (Part 1)

March 23, 2008

I’ve been getting a lot of questions by people who say “How does (Some succcessful person) strike a balance in mental, physical and spiritual aspects of his/her life?” and they go envying the life and the achievements of the person. Frankly, I’m also one of them. I always go on thinking how do people get it ALL? Not that I’m jealous of them (note that jealousy is a very negative affect), but I’m interested to model after them to get that perfect balance in my life too. Thus, I thought of the Triangle Theory for Success where in order to achieve success, there must be a balance between mental, physical and spiritual aspects of one’s life.

I like to think of our lives having a shape of a triangle where the 3 corners are the mental, physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. And each of these aspects have equal weightage of importance and should either one of them be lacking, there will be a tilt and the balancing of the triange will be affected. In order for you to be able to achieve success, you need to have all 3 corners in sync and be able to tap into the powers of each aspect to work to your advantage.

So, are the mental, spiritual and physical aspects of YOUR life in balance?

First, let me explain the 3 different aspects.

In my opinion, the mental aspect of life is being able to control your thoughts and feelings and obtaining and maintaining your mental well-being at its best.

How do you achieve that?

By surrounding yourself with those things that help build you as a person and being around people who are positive, optimistic and happy. Before you’d realise, you’ll adopt a similar mentality with those whom you associate or hang out with. Then start reading inspirational books and magazines to spur your spirit and ignite your desire to achieve the best in your life.

In addition, get involved in aesthetic activities such as visiting mueseums, concerts etc. and learn to take a breather from the stress of family and work and constantly recharging yourself and your energy.

Next, the physical aspect of our lives would be to lead a healthy lifestyle and have a healthy body. You need to start putting in effort to eat right and healthy and start exercising regularly to make sure that your mind and body are constantly moving to prevent ‘stagnation’.

Lastly, the spiritual aspect of our lives is being able to achieve spiritual balance in whatever we do and believe in. There’s a need to ensure that we grow as a person and spiritual growth is dependent on the individuals, meaning what works for you may not work for another. Growing spiritually in depth depends on factors such as how deep your faith is, how much time are you willing to put in to seek knowledge in the area as well as your calling to your faith.

So, think about it, how much do you want to achieve success? How are you going to achieve this balance? 

Whoever told you everything is easy! Remember you’ll need to put in enough time and effort in order to achieve this balance! So start working towards that today!

Now that I’ve shared with you the 3 aspects of life that are important for you to strike a balance between, in the next few posts, I will tell you how to tap into each aspect of life and fully utilise it to help you achieve the goals that you have in mind. I am sure that after striking this balance and fully making use of your talents and abilities that are uniquely yours and yours alone, you’ll be all set to achieve the greater things in life.